The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is the winner for April. Although you can get the traditional version free from MobileRead's Patricia Clark Memorial Library in several versions, I recommend the Uncensored Version if you can find and afford it. Amazon is still selling it for $2.84, which is, for whatever reason, way below what everyone else is charging.

I doubt, too, that it is easy to find for free, but it actually is public domain in many countries!

I don't see why the text of the original uncensored manuscript should remain in copyright anywhere. In this country unpublished anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire are protected for 120 years from date of creation. That would cover those unpublished portions of The Picture of Dorian Gray until 2010, but the estate still claims an ongoing copyright, which is claimed on "the typescript of The Picture of Dorian Gray." Did Oscar Wilde use a typewriter? I don't believe very many were in use in the late nineteenth century. If it's a typed script from a handwritten original not available to the general public, then it's the typed script which is copyrighted, at least in the United States and those countries that adhere to international copyright treaties such as the Berne Convention. The only other way I see they could still lay claim to copyright is to say that some unpublished portions were written after 1883, which I don't believe they do. So as I said, the original uncensored manuscript should be out of copyright, but good luck getting your hands on it to make a copy. I suspect the heirs of Oscar Wilde guard it with great vigilance.

To clarify: I meant that the text of The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, as edited by Nicholas Frankel, is public domain in many countries! A lot of countries do not grant extra protection for new or newly edited texts once the works of an author are in the public domain. Switzerland, for example. And for those countries it is entirely irrelevant if Mr Frankel claims copyright in the US.

To clarify: I meant that the text of The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, as edited by Nicholas Frankel, is public domain in many countries! A lot of countries do not grant extra protection for new or newly edited texts once the works of an author are in the public domain. Switzerland, for example. And for those countries it is entirely irrelevant if Mr Frankel claims copyright in the US.

That's great. Being as the man's been dead now since November 1900, it's about time. U.S. copyright laws do not favor the reading public. We can thank Disney for the fact that our copyright laws are so Mickey Mouse.

From what I understand, it had already been changed for the 1890 magazine publication and then further “toned down” but expanded for the 1891 book publication. Frankel’s edition gives the text as handed to the magazine by Wilde.

From what I understand, it had already been changed for the 1890 magazine publication and then further “toned down” but expanded for the 1891 book publication. Frankel’s edition gives the text as handed to the magazine by Wilde.

I am going to read the MR version. Despite the fact that the uncensored version may be the more complete version it isn't the version that became a classic. Of course the frugal (CHEAP) part of me has a large say in that. I have already spent my Amazon book settlement money.

I do look forward to hearing everyone's opinions on the new version. Hopefully someone with enough knowledge of the times will be able to chime in and say if they think the unedited version would have been popular enough to become the classic that we have today. That is, if they had released the uncensored version back in 1890 would it have become a classic or would it be mostly forgotten now?